Another year, another wrestler claims the #1 spot on the PWI 500 list.
Every year around this time, Pro Wrestling Illustrated releases their annual top 500 list, which includes all male wrestlers from various promotions. That means guys from the independent scene all the way up to the top guys in WWE are considered for this list (for those curious, PWI also releases a Women’s 100 list as well).
If you base their criteria off of Wikipedia, many factors come into play when they put this list together:
PWI has published the list of the top 500 professional wrestlers each year since 1991 in an annual special edition magazine, the PWI 500. PWI writers choose the position of the wrestler following a designated evaluation period starting from mid-June; anything a wrestler accomplished before or after that period is not considered. They follow a criterion that includes win-loss record, championships won, quality of competition, major feuds, prominence within a wrestler’s individual promotion(s) and overall wrestling ability.
So why does this matter today? Because earlier Thursday, PWI released their Top 500 list, and they announced that the #1 guy for the 2019 was none other that WWE’s Seth Rollins.
Since June of last year, Seth has been the Intercontinental Champion, the 2019 Royal Rumble winner and he defeated Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 35 for the Universal Championship, where he held the title the way until July before regaining the Universal title at SummerSlam earlier this month. After the Rumble, Seth’s been in the main event picture basically since January and is definitely deserving of the top spot.
With Seth topping the 2019 list, he joins other Hall of Fame wrestlers like Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, Sting, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H, John Cena, Shawn Michaels and others to top this prestigious list.
The rest of the top 10 for the 2019 Top 500 was also revealed on social media & rounds out as follows:
- Seth Rollins (WWE)
- Daniel Bryan (WWE)
- A.J. Styles (WWE)
- Kofi Kingston (WWE)
- Kazuchika Okada (NJPW)
- Johnny Gargano (NXT)
- Roman Reigns (WWE)
- Kenny Omega (AEW)
- Hiroshi Tanahashi (NJPW)
- Will Ospreay (NJPW, other promotions)
Of course, the Internet Wrestling Community (IWC) gave their opinions on social media to Seth claiming the top spot, as well as the rest of the top 10 that was also revealed. Many people thought Seth wasn’t deserving of the #1 rank, claiming that others like Will Ospreay deserved the nod for his stellar in-ring work. Others believed too many WWE guys made the top 10.
It’s just a list but every year, Wrestling Twitter always gets in an uproar over who’s the top guy, who’s in the top 10 and where certain guys fall on the list.
Seth responded on Twitter to being named as the top guy in the Top 500.
Flip the page for PWI’s official announcement, Seth’s response and Twitter reactions.
